Sizzling Summer SessionsBrett Rice | First Published: February 2006

The weather hasn’t been the only thing heating up lately with waterways in the border region really turning on some hot sessions.

Lake Hume is still producing plenty of redfin on bait and lures with fish averaging around 500g. Around trees in five metres of water seems to be where they are holding with worms and yabbies still the best baits to use.

I’ve found that using the smaller yabbies is a waste of time and money simply because there are too many tiddlers down there that wouldn’t even be able to make up a fish finger. Yabbies around 5 to 6cm produce the bigger fish.

Trolling deep-diving lures is still working really well with most of my larger fish being caught this way. Vikings, Australian Crafted lures and Merlins are the main tools of the trade for me but trolling a soft plastic above the diving lure has also resulted in a lot fish.

The golden perch in the weir have really shut down over the past few weeks with only a handful of reports coming in of fish caught on bait and very few on lures.

The lake is starting to drop and normally will keep doing so until next winter. This dropping water is thought to be the reason the yellas slow down so any chance of them firing up again is pretty slim.

Rivers

The Murray River below Lake Hume is very high at the moment due to irrigation demands downstream. In these situations the fishing can be tricky due to the fast currents but patience usually pays off.

Anglers using yabbies and shrimp are still getting plenty of yellas right through to Mulwala. There are plenty of cod to be caught so use bigger baits and bardi grubs.

The bottom of the Kiewa River where it meets the Murray is always a good spot to try for a cod at this time of year and there are also plenty of yellas to be found there.

The upper Murray is running at a perfect height at the moment with quite a number of reports of decent Murray cod coming in. Unfortunately, most of them have been caught on set lines and have been kept.

One confirmed report was of a 35kg cod caught on a set line and kept only because the anglers didn’t have a camera and needed some proof for bragging rights. Unfortunately this situation happens too often.

Surface lures are starting to take a few cod on dark, with shallow snaggy water the best area to target. The upper Murray is a great area to try out this technique.